Monday, May 5, 2014

Day 5: Boys Like You

For Monroe Blackwell, one small mistake has torn her family apart, leaving her empty and broken. There's a hole in her heart that nothing can fill. That no one can fill. And a summer in Louisiana with her Grandma isn't going to change that. Nathan Everets knows heartache first-hand when a car accident leaves his best friend in a coma. And it’s his fault. He should be the one lying in the hospital. The one who will never play guitar again. He doesn't deserve forgiveness, and a court-appointed job at the Blackwell B&B isn't going to change that.

Boys Like You is an emotional tale of two broken teens and the pain that lingers in them. Both are searching but also avoiding, wallowing in the shadows, wishing they could turn back time and fix their mistakes.

Monroe is a bit rougher than I expected. I knew she would be sad, upset, filled with avoidance and weighed down by tragedy, but she doesn't feel fake. She's depressed and she's still mourning, but it felt believable. And she has attitude. Her sorrow, while being a big part of her story, doesn't overwhelm her completely. But she still runs from her pain, escaping New York and hiding in Louisiana

Nathan is in a similar situation but his feels more immediate. Instead of leaving and spending the summer away like Monroe, Nathan is in the same place, with the same people, unable to escape the pain he feels over the accident that left his friend in a coma. Escape is not an option for him, so he turns to avoidance, turns to anything that doesn't remind him of what happened, and conveniently there's Monroe who has that same pained look.

A lot of this book seems to be about mistakes and regret, about grief and blame. Both Monroe and Nathan have made mistakes, the dangerous, deeply emotional, will change your life forever kind of mistakes. And it weighs heavily on them. What they wouldn't give to go back and change that one moment when everything came crashing down. When they meet, when the realize that they've been through something similar, they don't quite jump at the chance to connect because they don't want to be in that same spot again. But they need each other, they need emotional support from someone both connected and distant, and that is what will help them accept and move on instead of stay in the same place.

There were times when I felt that things were a bit off, like how they kept focusing on what clothes the other was wearing, or how at the beginning it sounded like a look back into the past, but I still enjoyed this. It felt fresh and exciting, and the heat of the Louisiana summer came alive. I would certainly recommend this for contemporary fans looking for emotional characters and an intense romance.

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from Sourcebooks through NetGalley.)